A brief perusal of your local newsagency will tell you that we live in a world that is largely obsessed with attractiveness and beauty.
From ancient times the human race has shown a pre-occupation with appearance and how to improve it, but it is only in the past couple of decades that we have really sought out to define attractiveness in scientific terms.
Professor Gill Rhodes work looks specifically at how we read and assess faces and whether at least some of our criteria for attractiveness are encoded within us and not just socially imprinted. She also explores why we find attractiveness so vital and important. Preliminary data seems to imply that attractiveness is something that we instinctively recognise regardless of cultural background and is often linked to being a marker of health, fitness and reproductive ability.
As the principal researcher of FaceLab in the School of Psychology, Rhodes' work is often a collaborative endeavour with fellow colleagues and students. Aside from looking at attractiveness, the Professor is also looking into other aspects of how faces play a role in how we communicate to and assess other people.
We've all heard that first impressions count, but with Rhodes' research we may finally understand why.
